Christmas 2010

Dale and I sang together at the 4 p.m. Christmas Eve service at Gethsemane Episcopal Church in downtown Minneapolis. Mom and her friend Lynne attended. Before the service began I had a small glass of champagne. After the service we went to Mom's where we started dinner with cheese fondue.

Following the fondue we had spinach salads with Mandarin oranges and walnuts. Dale and I brought the dressings, namely Annie's brand raspberry vinaigrette and Annie's papaya poppy seed. Both went very well with the Mandarin oranges. Mom broiled steaks after we finished the cheese fondue. Dessert was Baba Dessert which I named for my baba, Jean (Driscoll) Wagner, because I could never remember the name of the dessert itself. It was a very lovely dinner and evening and nice to continue with our traditional Christmas Eve foods!

Dale and I had a lovely and quiet Christmas morning. We spent time relaxing and enjoying each other's company and looking at our beautiful Christmas tree. We also spent some time getting ready for having Mom over for Christmas dinner. We made the crock pot beef stroganoff recipe that we've been using for years. I'm pretty sure that this is the first year we've made it for Christmas dinner. It's one of our favorite winter recipes and this is the first time we've made it this season. It's also extremely easy to make.

Mom came over at 3 p.m. and we had drinks and appetizers (crackers and hummus). We watched the ending of Ben-Hur on Turner Classic Movies while Dale got the egg noodles for the stroganoff and the broccoli ready. We were eating by about 4:30. It was all very delicious. Dessert was a Buche de Noel from Kowalski's and coffee.

We then spent some time reminiscing about how Mom celebrated Christmas as a child. I've recently been doing a lot of geneology research into the French Canadian branch of my family tree. My great-grandmother Cora (Alma) Driscoll (Fugere) was from French Canada and I was curious to know if she had passed any French Canadian Christmas traditions down to my grandmother Jean Wagner (Driscoll). Mom said she didn't think so. She told me that my Great-Grandma Cora had never taught any of her children French and that Grandma Jean (hereafter referred to as Baba) resented that. Mom said she didn't think my great-grandma passed down any specific Christmas customs to Baba.

Mom talked a little bit about how her own Christmases played out as a child. She said they never did anything on Christmas Eve but that she and her siblings opened their stockings on Christmas morning. She said she always got an orange in her stocking. They would go to church and then come home and open presents. Each child got only one present because money was very tight when she was younger. She said that one year she got a slip as her Christmas present.

I remember quite clearly my own Christmas traditions while growing up. Christmas Eve day was usually pretty relaxed (for us kids at least). Mom I'm sure was getting ready for Christmas Eve's fondue dinner and doing last minute preparations for Christmas Day. Dad always did his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve day. I remember going with him to the Southdale shopping mall one year when I was probably 12 or 13. I was surprised how quiet it was as the mall that day. I had supposed more people would be doing last minute shopping but that was not the case. I don't know if that was an anomaly for the time or not. It sure isn't that way today. We'd start the fondue dinner at about 5:00 pm with the cheese fondue. I remember helping to stir the cheese on the stovetop while Mom slowly added more cheese the pot. It would then be added to the fondue pot on the dining room table. We'd then dip chunks of stale French bread into the cheese. It was delectable!! We'd move on to the meat in oil fondue after the bread in cheese. Mom always had beef stew meat for the oil fondue. She'd mix together a special ketchup-like mixture for dipping the fried meat in. In maybe the late seventies or early eighties she added scallops to the oil fondue. She made a special herbed butter to dip the scallops in after they were done in the fondue pot. After the meat fondue she would get the chocolate fondue ready. I remember dipping strawberries and bananas in the chocolate. It was divine! I remember being amazed at how much I could eat when we'd do fondue. It was easy to pack it all in due to taking breaks between the courses to get the next course ready and because we had to eat slowly during each course. That's just the nature of fondue. It takes time to prepare each little morsel!

Christmas morning began with opening stockings once everyone was awake. Stockings were always chock full of good stuff. We'd go to mass at Annunciation Catholic church after opening stockings and eating a light breakfast. After mass we'd open the presents from underneath the Christmas tree. At about 2 p.m. we'd have a Christmas feast. The meal was usually a repeat of Thanksgiving dinner but some years we had ham instead of turkey. Dessert was usually Baba Dessert. After dinner I'd call whoever my best friend was at the time to wish them a Merry Christmas. We'd then talk about everything we got as a Christmas present. The evening of Christmas day was usually spent recovering from the food and excitement by watching Christmas programming on T.V. Once the VCR came along we'd spend the evening watching Christmas movies.

Sam told me that his Christmas in Leavenworth with Becky and the boys was very nice. They did fondue on Christmas Eve and had about 16 friends and neighbors over. According to Sam it was 'high adventure'. They started with cheese fondue and continued with meat. Becky bought a chocolate fountain and they had fruit to dip in that for dessert. Christmas day was "low key." Sam said the boys opened presents, had 'a big haul and were pretty happy'. I asked Calvin over the phone if Santa paid them a visit and he said 'maybe'. He told me he got a robot from Santa. Cashel said that Santa came and left him an Imaginex. I have no idea what that is. Cairic confirmed that Santa had indeed stopped by and wanted to get back to playing with toys.

Pete has been in Washington D.C. for the past year going to school for the Air Force. He, Stephanie, Abby, and Xander spent Christmas there this year. They hosted Stephanie's mom and step-dad and one of Steph's sisters along with her husband and two kids.

Compared to Sam and Pete I feel like I had a pretty low-key Christmas this year.